


One Man's Death

by plastic_cello



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, World War II, minor gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 10:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3846730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plastic_cello/pseuds/plastic_cello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain America could liberate hundreds of men, stop Nazis by the dozens. But when it really counted, he couldn't do a damn thing. He had let Bucky fall; he hadn't been brave enough to reach out any further. He hadn't been brave enough to follow Bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Man's Death

**Author's Note:**

> Another morbid/unrequited love story...

* * *

 

'The war isn't over yet, Rogers. One man's death doesn't change a damn thing.'

Colonel Phillips's words echoed on an endless loop through Steve's head. The war hadn't ended; it continued to rage across the continent like it had the day before and the day before that. Men were losing their lives on every front, and none of them truly impacted the overall scheme of things. Every foot soldier was expendable; every lost life was a statistic now.

Bucky Barnes's death hadn't changed a damn thing. There were still HYDRA bases undiscovered; there were still so many evil men at work, and nothing would stop them until the Allies ultimately won. Steve knew that; he understood why Colonel Phillips had chosen to be blunt, but that didn't make it any easier to accept.

Yes, the world continued to turn and the war raged on; however, Steve's life had come to a screeching halt. Everything he believed in seemed to become questionable now. He felt lost and alone, and more importantly – he felt a loss so apparent that his heart seized unexpectedly whenever the thought of Bucky came to the forefront of his mind.

The thing was that Bucky's death didn't feel real yet. Steve had caught himself prowling the base for him hours after the mission; only to be struck by the thought that Bucky wasn't there anymore. That Bucky had been hanging helplessly from a speeding train, and was taken by gravity to the bottom of an icy ravine.

Bucky was gone. Steve had been too slow to save him. Even with this new body that could do almost anything, he couldn't save his best friend. He couldn't be the hero that he wanted to be. All this talk of heroism was all for naught, especially if he couldn't save the one person that meant the world to him.

Captain America could liberate hundreds of men, stop Nazis by the dozens. But when it really counted, he couldn't do a damn thing. He had let Bucky fall; he hadn't been brave enough to reach out any further. He hadn't been brave enough to follow Bucky.

What's worse, it was Steve who asked Bucky to follow him. He had wanted nothing more than for his best friend to be by his side, even with the knowledge that Bucky had been tortured by HYDRA and suffered innumerable travesties that he'd never spoken of. And Bucky had selflessly followed him and never complained.

Guilt could hardly describe what Steve felt. He knew this was all his fault, and everyone tried to tell him otherwise. There were casualties in war; their unit wasn't beyond that. Bucky had chosen his fate once he signed up for the army. He knew the consequences. But maybe Steve hadn't; maybe Steve had always been a daydreamer and believed the Commandos were unstoppable. They had been up to this point, and the loss was unreal. It was unacceptable.

_"I shouldn't have to remind you of how crazy this is."_ The static-addled voice of Howard Stark cut through the whistle of the wind.  _"I helped you once, pal. But this is probably going to end up getting me in big trouble; bigger trouble than flying across enemy lines."_

Steve didn't grab for the radio at his hip. What could he say really? Both of them were bound to be in big trouble when Colonel Phillips learned that they had left base to return to the Swiss Alps. Steve was almost certain he'd be court marshaled this time around. He would certainly deserve it.

_"Are you listening to me?"_ Howard asked in evident exasperation.  _"Okay, so you aren't up for chit-chat; I get it. But no more than two hours; we can't stay out here forever. And let's be honest, the coordinates could be all wrong. The math can be tricky, you know with all the elements you have to take into account."_

They'd had this conversation before. There was no telling where Bucky could have landed after the fall, but Howard had attempted to pinpoint an area in which it was likely. And it had been enough for Steve; any guess was better than no guess at all.

Early that morning, he and Howard and boarded his airplane (the same they had taken to Austria) and flown to Switzerland. They would be missed; that much was certain and it would take very little to put the pieces together. Colonel Phillips would know where they had gone to right away.

Steve had spoken desperately about going to find Bucky. He'd been so emphatic that Colonel Phillips had wanted to sedate him, but they had both known that a regular sedative wouldn't have worked on him anyway. Colonel Phillips had mentioned a horse tranquilizer; luckily they hadn't had any on base though because it would have been used on him.

Regardless of the futility of ever recovering Bucky's body, Steve would be damned if he didn't at least try. How could he leave Bucky here? He needed to be back in Brooklyn where he belonged, not in some European wasteland.

The snow was thigh-deep and the wind bitterly cold. Despite his body's ability to withstand extreme temperatures, Steve could still feel the cold deep in his bones. It had to be several degrees below freezing down here, which made any delusional hope of Bucky's survival painfully unlikely.

The fall would have killed him; if not that then maybe a heart attack. That would have been the easiest way to go, instead of either falling into the frigid water or hitting the ground at such an extraordinary impact. Dying of a heart attack would have been humane in comparison; so long as Bucky didn't suffer.

Steve's insides clenched miserably at the thought. He didn't want to think of those last few moments; he wanted to forget them entirely and pretend like this was the worst nightmare he'd ever had. God only knew, he wished he would wake up from a fever; delirious and achy but with Bucky at his bedside with the sports section of the paper spread across his lap.

Even if it meant giving away the gift Dr. Erskine had passed onto him, he would be okay with it. He would be okay with staying back home in Brooklyn, never to see the front line. But it probably wouldn't have changed much of anything anyway. Bucky would have still been captured by HYDRA and probably tortured to death.

_"Minus ten,"_ Howard spoke again, although his voice sounded distant and grainy.  _"I think this was a mistake; super serum or not, the cold's going to kill you. Come back, Steve."_

That finally invoked a response from Steve at last. He blindly groped for his radio, unlatching it from his belt; before holding it to his lips. Initially, he didn't know what he wanted to say; there were plenty of things that he could have said, but none of them would express what was really on his mind.

How could anyone describe how it felt to lose your very best friend in the entire world? How could Steve explain that it felt like his heart had been pulled out of his chest and blown into pieces? The answer was that there wasn't any way; Howard would never understand and good for him.

"Go back, Howard. You've done enough." He said into the radio, and continued to wade through the endless snow.

_"Are you barking mad?_ " Howard responded almost immediately.  _"Serum or not like I already said, you'll freeze to death out there! Like hell am I going to leave you out here to die!"_

"Thank you, Howard; for everything," Steve replied, before he hooked the radio at his hip again; he didn't turn it off, though.

Howard's familiar voice would, undoubtedly make this mission a little more bearable. The further he moved away, the least likely that the reception would remain halfway decent; but at least he wouldn't feel as isolated as he truly was. Because this possibly could be a suicide mission; he could be snapping at Bucky's heels, no doubt intentionally.

The prospect of life without Bucky didn't seem like much of a life at all. He was always the one on death's doorstep; everyone marveled that he even lived past twenty. Childhood illnesses coupled with a slew of disabilities had convinced people that he wouldn't make it to adulthood.

Bucky had been the only who believed in his resilience. He'd been fervent on trying to keep Steve alive. From late hours at the docks, gambling his pay with some dope in a seedy bar; Bucky had always brought in enough money to ensure Steve had had his medicine and a roof over his head.

Those memories had run rampant in Steve's mind ever since Bucky's death. He thought of every sacrifice Bucky had made for him, and every fight he had intervened in before Steve was beaten into a pulp. He remembered how selfless Bucky had always been, and how selfish he had been in comparison.

The least he could do for Bucky was to take him home. He never wanted to do it this way, though; never like this. He had been so stupid to think that they would remain unscathed through the war; he had been delusional and hopeful and goddamn cocky.

Steve's eyes prickled, not for the first time, with tears. Everywhere he looked there were only endless hills of snow. Above the howl of the wind, the sound of running water was audible. Bucky could have been swept upstream or could be at the very bottom of the river.

There was a very real possibility that that Bucky wouldn't be found. Steve had tried to make peace with that outcome; Howard had been direct just like Colonel Phillips had. Nothing was guaranteed, but disappointment was likely.

_"Steve,"_ Howard's voice was faraway.  _"Come back now. I made a mistake; this was an awful, delusional idea. How did I let you talk me into this? You're going to die. Please reconsider what you're doing. Please for the love of god."_

The plea met deaf ears. Steve moved deliberately through the heavily packed snow still, and started to feel a numbness work its way into his body. Even if he wanted to reply to Howard, he didn't trust his lips to move. They felt frozen into a frown, and the only part of him that seemed capable of movement was his legs; fueled only by his determination and nothing more.

It became harder and harder to maneuver through the elements eventually. The further away he moved from the airplane's landing spot, the thicker and harder the snow became. The wind blew against the lower half of Steve's face like a whip, and he deeply regretted not taking some sort of protection beyond his cowl.

His lips were already beginning to crack, as he lost sensation in what felt like every limb. This was a suicide mission; there wasn't any doubt about it now. He had come out here to die, to join Bucky. Because where Steve ended, Bucky began; they were connected like a figure eight. If one of them died, it only seemed appropriate that the other did as well.

There was a loud crackle from the radio, which sounded like a death throe. So this was it; this was end of little sickly Steve Rogers from Brooklyn. He wasn't dying on a lumpy mattress in a boarding house somewhere. He wasn't beaten bloody by some rakish drunkard in an alleyway. He was going to die thousands of leagues away from home in a suicide mission.

He knew how selfish he was being; he knew how much responsibility he'd abandoned. He knew he would cripple the SSR's attempts to dismantle HYDRA and end the war. But none of that seemed to matter anymore. A world without Bucky was pointless.

Alone with death on his heels, Steve could finally let years of gnarled and sinful thoughts work their way to the forefront of his mind. Only once had he entertained them; he'd been fourteen, struck by pneumonia and no one had thought he'd survive. That's when he allowed that forbidden want to claw its way into his consciousness.

His only regret back then was that he hadn't kissed Bucky. He had wanted to since he was twelve, but he knew what kind of sickness that was. He wasn't a queer; Bucky wasn't one either. But for one delirious moment, Steve hadn't cared. He had wanted to kiss Bucky, and god be damned for him wanting it so badly.

He hadn't died, though. He'd gotten better (or as good as someone sickly did), and he shoved that thought away like it was fire. It really hadn't surfaced much afterwards; dames seemed a lot more appealing with their soft curves and perfumed hair, and Peggy had knocked Steve right off his feet.

Bucky had always been in his peripheral, but the desire had waned with time. Now, however, Steve felt a desperate kind of regret. Queer or not, he should have kissed Bucky just the once; played it off as adrenaline from a risky mission or something. Men kissed out of friendship in this neck of the woods (or at least that's what he'd been told). So it wouldn't have been a big deal.

That's what Steve told himself anyway. But it hardly mattered now; Bucky was dead and he knew his body was about to give out on him at any given moment. He didn't know how long he'd been exposed to this kind of cold, but it was long enough to slow his body down to a snail's pace.

And that's when he saw a peculiar lump several yards away. It could have been anything, really. It could have been a rock, a fallen tree, a dead animal, or even shrapnel from the train. All those possibilities were feasible, yet Steve desperately believed otherwise.

"B-Buck," his lips peeled away painfully; skin tearing away and the warmth of blood pooled into his mouth.

Forcing himself to look upward, Steve squinted and saw the sharp peaks of the mountains looming overhead. Even with his advanced vision, he couldn't tell if the train tracks were up there or not. The prospect was there though, backed up by Howard's calculations.

With that in mind, Steve moved as fast as he could manage. His best efforts were probably better than the average human's, yet they were still unbelievably stunted and clumsy. It felt like an endless journey, one that he would never survive to see the end to.

Somehow the distance closed between him and the lump. Steve collapsed unceremoniously onto the hardened snow, and it sunk underneath his weight. Reaching out with leaden arms, he brushed away the dust of a newly fallen snow; although it hadn't hardened on the lump very much.

Something blue and then brown was uncovered under the blanket of white. The familiar wing patched onto each Commando's uniform revealed itself, although on a mangled sleeve; blackened by…

"B-B-Bucky," Steve felt his heart seize in his chest.

The joy and relief of finding Bucky was overshadowed by the unnatural way that his left arm hung from his body. Ligaments, bone, and darkened blood could be seen as clear as day against the snow. But that paled in comparison to the mild, motionless, and blue-lipped expression on Bucky's face.

Intellectually he knew Bucky wouldn't have survived. Not even he could have survived a drop from that height, and yet some foolish part of him had held onto hope. He had hoped that Bucky would be okay. Yet not even his body had remained intact after the fall.

Unsteady and unreliable as his body was now, Steve tried to shift Bucky from the awkward angle in which he had landed. He used as much patience and care as he could, in order not to do any further harm to Bucky's already broken body.

The task was a difficult one; Bucky's body refused to move without vigilant manipulation. Some of his clothing was left behind on the snow's frozen surface, but luckily his skin had been spared that fate.

What proved to be the hardest not to disrupt was Bucky's mangled arm. Steve could do very little but allow it to trail morbidly after the rest of Bucky's body that he half pulled into his lap.

A strangled noise rattled out of Steve, although the wind took it almost immediately afterwards. Tears again prickled at his eyes; they froze on his cheeks underneath the cowl, and he quickly reached to remove it. Because he knew there was no way that he'd ever make it back to Howard and their communication was effectively cut.

Steve removed the cowl and dropped it to the snow, before his hands cradled Bucky's frozen and blue-tinged cheeks. Death had done very little to rob Bucky of his handsomeness; if anything, it only preserved it forever now.

"S-Sorry, so sorry," he managed to say, regardless of the difficulty of getting words past his chattering teeth.

It seemed like a lifetime ago that they were at camp, discussing the details of the mission that had changed everything. Bucky had been rundown but vibrant in the early morning glum. He'd practically demanded to be allowed onto the train with Steve; a tactic to keep him safe, no doubt.

Bucky had done his job all right. Steve had been safe; he had lived to see another day and even the day afterwards. But Steve had been the one who failed; he had failed Bucky. Who gave a damn if Zola had been captured? Not him; not anymore.

Nothing had changed with Zola in captivity. Colonel Phillips hadn't under-minded Schmidt's doctor and colleague; the Allies hadn't gotten any solid information from him. So why had Bucky died? Why had that sacrifice been made if it was for nothing? Because like Colonel Phillips had said himself, one man's death didn't end the war. So one's capture, as low level as Zola, did nothing either.

Steve began to sob and curled over Bucky protectively. He had failed; everything that he accomplished amounted to nothing in the end. Zola's capture was supposed to have a domino effect; or so that was what he was led to believe.

Maybe they'd torture him or maybe they'd kill him. Either way it wasn't enough for Steve; not when Bucky was dead in his arms. Unless the war ended tomorrow, it would never be enough. And he knew that that wouldn't happen; Bucky's final mission wouldn't end the war. Any confession Zola made wouldn't either. Unless they found both Schmidt and Hitler hiding away in a foxhole together then the war would rage on still.

"O-Okay, B-Buck," Steve said through his sobs, and felt a pool of warmth collect at the base of his spine.

Warmth was both a good and bad thing. Steve knew well enough that if he started to feel warm and sleepy that that meant he was on the verge of dying. His body was about to shut down. Howard warned him about the possibilities as they flew back to this very location. He had even told Steve if he started to have any of those symptoms that he needed to not sit or lie down, and try to hurry back to the plane as soon as possible.

The airplane was too far away, though; he'd never make it and definitely not with Bucky in tow. Yet he was okay with that decision. There was nothing left for him out there anyway. Yes, there was Peggy; beautiful, independent Peggy but she'd be all right. She'd conquer the world in no time flat.

Steve regretted not being able to tell Peggy exactly what he thought of her. He never got to confess how she blew him away, and how much he respected the hell out of her. Then there were the Howling Commandos; they were like brothers to him. And Howard; he could never repay him, not in a million years for what he'd done today.

His eyelids grew heavy, although his eyes remained focused on Bucky still. If only it were like the fairytales; maybe a kiss would wake Bucky up and everything would be okay. Maybe he was just in a deep sleep, waiting for someone to rouse him with true love's kiss.

Steve's head dropped limply forward, only inches away from Bucky's blue lips. He never closed the distance, though. His eyes shut and a fuzzy and comforting warmth wrapped its way around his body like a blanket, and everything began to fade away and eventually turned black.

* * *

 

The faraway sound of music eased him into consciousness. It sounded like a Glenn Miller tune that had frequently been played on the radio. The memory was hazy, unfortunately. He couldn't definitively say where he heard it; he wanted to say in a small cramped space with dilapidated furniture in it, probably more than likely in Brooklyn.

Slowly, he opened his eyes and blinked the sleep away. There was a dull ache in his temple and his limbs felt leaden. The ceiling above his head was dark, almost cave-like. He soon realized everything was dark but a buttery yellow beam of light coming from a lamp close-by.

He tried to sit up, but his body wouldn't respond. He groaned lowly and tried again and again until he figured out why. He was tied down with what only could be reinforced steel restraints. Something told him if he hadn't been properly restrained, he would have broken free by now; although where he would have gone was a mystery.

Beyond his line of sight, he heard a rustling sound and the beginning of another instrumental in the background. He craned his neck to no avail; he couldn't see anything. But he didn't have to wait long, before someone approached the bed that he was chained to. He'd never seen the man before in his life; he was the sort you never forgot if you did meet him in the past. He was sure of that much.

"Welcome back, Cap." The dark-skinned man with an eyepatch said. "You have quite a rap sheet, if I do say so myself. Seventy years worth of mayhem, I'm pretty impressed."

"W-What,"

"The intelligence community was skeptical of you at best." The man continued humorlessly. "But we've had intel on the Winter Soldiers for some time now. Lucky for us, we've caught you although your partner's still on the lam. But how do they say – divide and conquer?"

"I don't understand."

"Comrade Barnes is on our radar."

"Bucky, he's alive?"

"Maybe not for long," the man replied, before he moved out of sight again. "The Soviets brainwashed our greatest American hero, made him into a killing machine; and now we're going to try and fix your garbled brain, Cap. So welcome to the twenty-first century. You're in for one hell of a ride."

Words failed Steve, but the only thing he knew that mattered was that Bucky was alive. He didn't know how or why or even if the dark-skinned man was telling the truth. All he knew for certain was that some way somehow Bucky would come looking for him now. He could save him.

It was an indisputable fact now, one man's death seemed to have had a greater impact that anyone realized. Maybe it hadn't ended the war, but clearly something had happened beyond Steve's recollection or understanding. And something told him it was all because of Bucky.


End file.
